Viking Lars, infamous for his Denmark or Bust antics, has put his bag fetish to one side for a while and written us an excellent review of this new book. Go Lars!

Listen to the River is a flytying book par excellence! The author, Steve Thornton, is well known from his writings in Flyfishing and Flytying magazine, amongst others, and from different shows around the world. I recently met Steve at the Danish Fly Festival and can attest to the extremely high quality of his tyings - he really is a world-class fly-tier.

My copy of the book is the "working edition" and is ringbound, which ensures that it always lays nice and flat on the tying desk for easy use and reference throughout the tying. The book is well laid out, with each chapter covering one or more patterns imitating specific insect groups. Groups covered are (in the order they appear in the book), stoneflies, caddis (sedge), mayflies, freshwater shrimps, hatching smuts and midge pupae; and it ends with a few generic searching patterns (the Ammonite nymph, the Inveigle nymph and the CAM emerger). Each chapter is garnished with a short comment by the author on where, how and why he fishes the fly, the special characteristics or a comment on materials. All that's followed by a chapter explaining the special tying techniques that Steve Thornton uses. The end result is a book that seems like a complete account of Steve Thornton's flytying philosophy.

The headline or title of each chapter and pattern are placed on the side of the paper and not on top of the page. When flipping through the book this makes it a little difficult to immediately recognize when a new tying is started. Paper is glossy, ensuring a high reproductive quality of the pictures. And speaking of the pictures, although a few of them are a little shaky, they are of extremly high quality. The step by step instructions are made with four pictures per page and they are large enough to really see what's going on. On some of the patterns it's hard to see exactly what to do, but the text accompanying each photograph beautifully clears this up. The text is clear, concise, to the point and very easy to understand. But be warned that is in no way a beginner's book. Some of the patterns are fairly simple, but the majority are quite complex tyings. In the book are several patterns that I have not seen before, although I have visited Steve Thornton's website many times over the last year or so. This site complements the book very well.

All that said, this book is a must for the tyer of realistic troutflies. The flies are truely highly realistic and most features Steve Thornton's "signature" material, his own Nymph Skin. I have myself tied several of Steve's patterns and they are great fun to tie. Not fast ones, but once one gets into Steve's way of thinking and tying flies, things happen a little quicker. You will need to tie a few before they begin looking anything like Steve's truely expert tyings. And they can catch fish as well (I've caught on both the Rhyacophila larva and the hatching caddis pupae). There are so many new ideas and techniques in the book that all flytyers will enjoy it.

The book is obtainable through Steve's own website (www.virtual-nymph.com), costs GBP 25 and is well worth the money. A leatherbound, limited edition of the book is also available through www.virtual-nymph.com. It comes with my best recommendations. Enjoy!